Smurfit Kappa holds Health and Safety Day events across its global operations

Smurfit Kappa Group is holding its annual Health and Safety Day events across its 370 locations in 35 countries. The events take place in conjunction with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Health & Safety Day which is celebrated worldwide this year on April 28th.

Throughout late April and the first half of May, the entire Smurfit Kappa workforce spends a day participating in activities designed to make people think about best practices in safety, safety performance and all the opportunities to make the company an even safer place to work.

The theme that Smurfit Kappa has chosen for this year’s global Health & Safety campaign is ‘Safety for Life’, which recognises that safe work practices are vital to enjoy a fulfilling life and aims to improve on the already high level of safety awareness of its employees.

The ‘Safety for Life’ campaign highlights six potential areas of risk for employees in the workplace including:

• Energy isolation
• Contact with moving machines
• People and vehicle interactions
• Warehouses and backyards
• Working at heights
• Contractors and visitors

A suite of communications materials included videos, posters and social media posts were created to reinforce the message that no task is so important that it cannot be done safely.

Policies and operational procedures both at regional and local level will support the campaign to ensure quick and successful implementation in all the Smurfit Kappa operations.

Tony Smurfit, Group CEO, says: “Safety is a value which underpins every aspect of our work and at Smurfit Kappa we believe that no task is so important that it cannot be done safely.

“We work hard every day but the most important thing is that we all make it back home to our loved ones safely.”

Gianluca Castellini, Group VP Human Resources added: “Our annual Health & Safety Day has always been very well received by our employees, contractors and their families.

“It provides a great opportunity to stop and think about how safely we are doing our jobs on a daily basis and how that could impact us in our lives inside and outside of work.”

Some of the local activities arranged locally during the H&S Day events throughout Europe and the Americas include:

• Safety demonstrations and training
• Safety expert talks
• First aid training
• Health checks
• Well-being practices
• Family site visits